site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32255 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

10
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Also the world bank data shows that before the whole tax haven thing, Ireland was trailing the UK with around 65% of its GDP per capita.

Small note here since I both work in finance and am Irish; this exagerrates the UK advantage since a large proportion British GDP also comes from financial/tex efficiency stuff. If you're going to strip out the Irish tech sector (which is both the largest employer and largest GDP contributing sector of the economy) on the basis that firms are only sited there for tax efficiency, then to do a fair comparison you'd need to strip out the UK financial sector too.

It's true that GDP isn't a good metric to examine Ireland; our central bank publishes a figure that tries to account for the distortionary effect of profit funnelling, and which puts us about on a par with France on a per capita basis. If we're talking salaries and cost of living, Irish salaries are higher than non-London UK ones, and slightly lower than London ones.

When I quoted 65%, I was looking at the 60s-70s parts of those charts. I presume neither country had such a magnitude of “fake” economy back then?

You're comparing Ireland with London though, instead of Ireland with the UK. For sure Ireland doesn't have a city to rival London; neither does any other EU country. Paris and Berlin are both a grade below it; the only Western city that genuinely rivals London is NYC. Losing the UK from the EU was whatever, but losing London was a real tragedy for us. No disagreement there.

If the comparison is nation to nation instead of nation to city though, our per capita results come out above the UK in a lot of meaningful metrics.

As for the breakdown of roles, yes, no disagreement: the "top of the pyramid" roles tend to be based in London as UK personal tax is lower (Irish tax on equities is fucking abysmal), pay for high-end roles is higher, and there are a lot more of them.

Some quibbles: quite a lot of sales roles are really based here. Speaking of Google for example, more than 50% of staff in Dublin would be in sales roles, albeit junior ones. A junior sales role at Google is still pretty good. Meta is similar, so is Salesforce, Microsoft et al.

And you'll be aware of course that, given the loyalist history of the institution, people who go to Trinity aren't really Irish. The most ambitious Irish grads go to the US, not the UK, because there are more hoops to jump through; just like the Canadians you meet in London being more impressive than those in Boston.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats